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10 Army Hist. 1 (1986)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0010 and id is 1 raw text is: The ARMYHISTORIAN A PUBLICATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY Number 10 Washington, DC. Winter 1986 Army Historians and Historic Preservation: The Alaska Example D C ul Dienttld Nhe ortieth anniversary of the end of Wotl War (1 has meant in addition to comem. oralve ev ents and considerable media cov erage an increased sensitiit to thc prever sa on of historical mu iar stes Although p'nbhc awarenness on this issue is a ser recent de lopment. the preservation of miliary shts has been going on for some time. Ar my historians have an important role to play in ihis activity. In addition to their tratditional fune- lions of conducting archival and other doci- mentary research, Army historians are called ipon to tirve and In rlt bhy ical rmaill df old installaaions. In the preservation process, they make rield surveys to identify and evalute such military objects and sites as fortifications buildings, battlefields, and the flotsrm of wr. isn expanded role for Army historians in historic preservation is perhaps nowhere as evi- dent as in the US Army Corps of Enginers clean-up program in its Alaska District The program, funded out of the Defeirse Fn- vi ronmental Restoration Account (DE R A) h* l responsibility for the removal of debris from for mer Department of Defense properties The Alaska District probably leads the nation in thr number ol abandoned milary bases. During World War II an entire region of the Aleutians was built up and within five years abandoned, leaving behind the enormioas amount of debris that today litters these beautiful islands. Fort3 years of neglect and extreme northern weather have decayed but not obliterated some 20.(XXI structures at about thirt separate installations. Were it nor for historical concerns. ridding these islands and other Alaskan regions of the military debris littering them w ould have been a relatively straight for ward iask for the Engineers. There were two principal historical issues: the importance of the Alaskan aspects of World War It arnd the potetall the abandoned Sits provided for rare examples ol military architec ture. As an American tpnors mn\\orld \\ar 11 \laska underwntm both Japanese earner-based air attacks and laud insasions Clean-up ac d1i1es threatened the destrction ol relcs that could provide physical dimensions to the Alaskan wartime expcricrnce. The DRA pro gram therefore included a historian posiion provide preservation cxpeniw_. Many of the abandoned bases are on remote and uninhabited islands, and some of the struce toes found-relaively untouched - are among the last examples of their kind. Field surveys hase located a variety of Ciilan conservation Corps designs, as well as untouched Quonset uts, Pacific huis (plywood twins of Quonsets, developed later in the war to avoid the use of ctitical materials)I Stot houses (twelve by sixteen-foot prefabricated huts), and many other buildings either rare or found only in Alaska. A few of Jhe rare buzddin ere tru tu ound .rmitng ir re ention: others wer butch f!Jarb '?rJ I~~ h~ JIrnI rStui'r

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